Let’s take a moment and look back at 2011. These are the best posts of 2011, according to your votes.
Here’s how we determined this list. You know at the bottom of each post, you can rate the posts from 1 (“Hated it”) to 5 (“Awesome”) stars? Well, we looked at the posts from the past year, limiting the list to posts with 30 or more ratings. Then, we took the highest rated ones, and are presenting them here. We’re not ranking them from 1-10, but simply presenting a chronological listing of the top ten posts of the year, as you, the IMAO reader, rated them.
- Doesn’t ANYONE Like This Woman…
Posted by Harvey on February 11 - Who Are the Koch Brothers
Posted by Frank J. on February 24 - Where Did Obama Grow Up?
Posted by Frank J. on March 3 - Fred Phelps vs Paul of Tarsus
Posted by Basil on March 7 - Is He Sure About This?
Posted by Harvey on April 4 - In My World: Let Them Eat Hybrids
Posted by Frank J. on April 8 - The Left’s Problem with Trig
Posted by Frank J. on April 25 - Callooh! Callay!
Posted by Frank J. on May 2 - Need More Borders for Obama
Posted by Frank J. on May 20 - Liberal logic
Posted by Basil on October 29
Are these really the best of the best? According to your voting, yes. If there were some posts during 2011 that you thought were better than these, feel free to leave a comment telling about your favorite.
And, if you don’t bother to rate posts, well, just like in the presidential election, if you don’t bother to vote, don’t complain about the results.
Still, this list of ten is a pretty good list. Even if a couple of mine made the list. (That’s just motivation for Frank to write better stuff. Or to rate my stuff with one star.)
By the way, in the sidebar on the right, Frank keeps a running list of the top rated posts of all-time. Well, since IMAO went to WordPress in 2008, anyway. You can always check out the classics there.
Oh, one other thing. I wish I had some hard statistics on comments. Some of the comments left this year were fantastic. In addition to writing the occasional post here, I am a long-time reader of IMAO, and I’ve always enjoyed the comments here. I want to thank you for providing me with some laughs, too.
Basil’s NASA storyboard should have broken the top 10…
Thanks for the mention of that post. It was from late 2010, actually, but I appreciate the kind words.
Basil, since you mentioned commenters, these are my choices for Best Commenter of 2011 by topic (in no particular order):
Topic – Commenter
Tuna – DamnCat
Calvin Coolidge – MarkoMancuso
Chick magnetism and Higgs Boson (a combined Science! award) – ussjimmycarter
OWS protesters – Son Of Bob
Religious economic affairs – EdthePastor
Food (i.e., bacon) and cultural affairs – Crabby Old Bat (Walnuts!!!!11!!)
Babies – CarolynThePregnant
Romney – seanmahair (come back! come back!)
Preservation of liberty – FormerHostage
Preservation of conservatism – Conservatarian
Preservation of small animals – Critter
Preservation of potatoes – (category removed due to consumption)
End of civilization as we know it – Veeshir
There are many more topics – and winners – but space limitations do not allow their full enumeration. Suffice it to say that every commenter is a winner. Blue ribbons to all.
The topics, on the other hand, are just bizarre. This place is weird, Basil.
We just need everyone to 5-star like this post so it shows up next year and we could have a neverending post of other posts that were somhow important or liked about other posts that were liked
lets not forget this awesome moment in IMAO history 2011
http://www.imao.us/index.php/2011/07/nuke-the-news/
bask in the warm, aromatic, embracing, awesomeness of BANTHA FODDER
See, I told you there were other categories!
Warm, aromatic, embracing, awesomeness goes to – Bantha_Fodder
Another awesome, aromatic winner (or is it ‘enigmatic?’):
Political-mechanical wizardry goes to – Hippie Punchomatic 5000
Sucking up to the other commenters: Jimmeh!!
Absolutely, Crabby! Because I was worried that commenting was dead.
God knows Frank isn’t.
(I hope you liked your “Food (i.e., Bacon) and Cultural Affairs” award.)
People were saying, “It’s dead, Jim.”
“Is this a dead blog, Doctor?”
“Very dead, Mr. Spog.”
Since you just started adding the Facebook “Like” option this year, maybe you can make a tally of the most ‘Liked’ post next year.
4of7:
That would be a good alternate way to rate posts, but there are a couple of issues.
*WARNING* Behind-the-scenes jibberish follows!
First, the Facebook “Like” button won’t do much if you don’t have a Facebook account. People without active Facebook accounts can’t vote using that method. The Stars works with full browsers (though not with the mobile interface), regardless of whether or not anyone has any kind of account; you just click the star and your vote is counted.
Next, the Stars voting is actually a WordPress plugin. And the plugin has the ability to output lists. I simply output a listing of the top ten posts over a specific time period. There is no such output for the Facebook “Like” feature. I’d have to go to each of the 963 posts that appeared in 2011 (that’s the count as of midnight the 27th) and write down the total number of “Likes.” Quite honestly, I’m too lazy for that. Now, if there was a way to easily get a report of the “Likes” it would be something to consider.
Finally, the Facebook “Like” feature only has “Like” with no degree of how much it’s liked. The stars do at least offer 5 levels of like.
Those are the main issues with the Facebook “Like” option. So, I went with what was easy.
“And, if you don’t bother to rate posts, well, just like in the presidential election, if you don’t bother to vote, don’t complain about the results.”
Trust me, voting works. I rated every post SarahK ever posted with a 1. She doesn’t post here anymore. I’m not complaining about the results at all, in fact I’m quite happy with them.
Huh. And all this time I thought it was because of that whole baby thing, since those her last post was right around the time she was pregnant.
Oops, sorry.
Basil does a yeoman-like job of tallying the best stories of 2011, and I suggest something more labor intensive and less accurate as an alternative.
Maybe I have what it takes to be a government regulator?
Yikes! (I need to wash my mind out with beer!)